


Bits and Pieces

by kawuli



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/F, Ficlets and drabbles, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-07-29 17:14:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 7,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7692817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kawuli/pseuds/kawuli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>30 days of writing challenge: Using the prompts below, write a <strike>drabble</strike> ficlet a day for the next 30 days:<br/><i>beginning. accusation. restless. snowflake. haze. flame. formal. companion. move. silver. prepared. knowledge. denial. wind. order. thanks. look. summer. transformation. tremble. sunset. mad. thousand. outside. winter. diamond. letters. promise. simple. future.</i></p>
<p>Crossposted from tumblr (at <a href="https://nyininkalikela.tumblr.com/tagged/30+days+of+writing/">this tag</a>). </p>
<p>Chapter titles include the POV characters (and sometimes other important characters/ships). A lot of them are OCs from my Hunger Games fic, so those chapters may not make sense if you haven't read my other stuff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginning: Rey

In the beginning, she remembers fear. 

Remembers it curling up her throat and freezing her limbs and making her shake. Making her hide from Unkar Plutt because she thought if he couldn’t find her maybe—who knows what. She was little, and dumb, and didn’t understand the one ironclad rule of Jakku: parts for portions. 

She was small, and slow, and stupid, but she learned fast, figured out that small meant she could slip into places the rest of them couldn’t, that they might not see her if she stayed very still before darting out to steal a screwdriver, a long-handled wrench, a knife. Learned about leverage, learned that her long wrench would loosen a stuck bolt, but would also hurt enough to make a thief leave her alone, if she swung it hard at his kneecaps, his groin, his face if it was down low enough to reach. 

Rey was scared all the time, in the beginning. Now she doesn’t usually bother getting scared, not when she can get out, or get even.


	2. Accusation: Rokia

“Collaboration with the regime of President Snow.  
Collaboration in the War Crimes of Alma Coin…

Rokia tunes it all out. She’s been expecting them, these accusations. Yesterday they treated her like a victim: The Games, the…after, the world Snow threw her into.

Today they want to know if she’s a criminal, too.

“You were instrumental in designs of heavy lift hovercraft for delivery of Peacekeeper weaponry.”

The woman’s grey. Grey hair grey suit grey eyes, pale skin. Probably not Capitol, maybe Thirteen, who really cares?

“I asked you a question.”

She didn’t, Rokia thinks. She doesn’t say it, because snarky little shit isn’t a good look in a courtroom. 

“Yes,” Rokia says. Not-question answered.

“Why?” The woman leans forward. Rokia can smell her perfume. Probably not Thirteen then.

“Because Snow told me to.” As though it wasn’t obvious. 

The woman looks frustrated. “You collaborated in Capitol oppression of the Districts,” she snaps. “And that’s all you have to say for yourself?”

Rokia shrugs. 

“You also built hovercraft for Alma Coin.” 

Still not a question, but Rokia nods. “Yes.” 

“Hovercraft which were used to commit war crimes.” 

Rokia isn’t sure if that’s a question or not, and anyway she doesn’t know how to answer it. 

“Why did you switch sides?”

Rokia bites her lip. “I escaped the Capitol, went to Thirteen, they asked me to make myself useful.” 

“You disguised hovercraft from Thirteen to look like they were from the Capitol.”

“They were from the Capitol. I repaired them, Thirteen’s pilots flew them.”

The woman looks toward the panel of judges. Rokia glances over too—they look bored. Not, she suspects, what this woman was aiming for. 

“So you just do what you’re told?” The woman sneers.

Rokia wants to laugh. Maybe this lady is Capitol, she’s out of touch enough. 

“What’s so funny?” Okay, not completely out of touch. Rokia’s mouth must have twitched. 

“Yes,” Rokia says, and it’s not funny anymore, because… “I had—have—two younger sisters. I was trying to keep them safe.” 

Now the woman’s smiling.

“And where are they now, then?” 

Rokia bites down hard on the inside of her lip, tastes blood. “Hidden.” She snaps it off and the woman’s smile turns snakelike. 

“So all that work, selling out to the highest bidder, all that’s for nothing.” 

Rokia’s fingernails are digging into her palms—if they were any longer she’d be drawing blood. But this woman wants her to react, and she’ll go back to the Arena before she lets that happen. 

Besides, it’s almost amusing watching the lady get more and more frustrated, like an engine overheating. 

“Counsellor,” the head judge’s voice is bored, and annoyed. “I think we’ve heard enough, let the kid go.” 

Rokia imagines the steam coming from this woman’s ears, but she just climbs to her feet, walks out, and heads for the shop.


	3. Restless: Sara

It’s late. They just finished a rush job, convinced Sal to let them borrow his truck. Rokia’s driving, Matt’s in the backseat pretending he didn’t want to come, and Sara’s got one hand out the open window, pushing against the headwind in the heavy summer humidity.

They get to the fence way too soon, the access road wide, well-lit, patrolled, and none of them have driving licenses so they pull off into an alley.

“There’s nothing here!” Matt whines.

Sara turns to glare at him, and he shuts up. They can see through the fence from here, wide cleared field giving way eventually to forest.

“Someday,” Sara says. “I’m getting out of here, just you wait.”


	4. Snowflake: Lyme

Their first cold, snowy day, Rokia heads out to the garage early, before Lyme’s awake. Comes in later, wraps blue-tinged fingers around a cup of tea, curls next to the radiator with a blanket pulled close around her.

She’s starting to get back up, setting down her mug, unwrapping herself, when Lyme snaps. “Sit your ass back down,” she says, grabbing the mug off the floor, heading toward the kitchen to refill it. “There’s nothing out there that can’t wait ‘till it’s warmer.”

The kid’s still standing, glaring, when Lyme comes back. But Rokia takes the mug, her fingers still icy when they brush Lyme’s. A moment’s hesitation, and she sits, folding herself small and pulling the blanket back around her shoulders. 

She buries her nose in the steam from the tea and won’t meet Lyme’s eyes.


	5. Haze: Rey

It starts as a dark line along the horizon, the wind kicking up, a strange sense of expectation. Rey sees it from the destroyer where she’s working, considers, then slides down the rope to the ground.

She guns the speeder towards Niima outpost, dumps the haul, still dusty, on Plutt’s counter. There’s not time to clean it, but most of it’s bulk anyway. Plutt pokes at it with a stubby finger. “One portion,” he says, drops it in front of her.

It’s low, of course it is. Plutt can see the haze in the southwest just as well as she can.

Rey gets back home just as the real gusts hit. The sand stings, but she doesn’t care because behind the metallic grit is the smell of rain. The clouds are closing overhead, and there’s just enough time to drag out the basins she keeps by the door before the thunder crashes over her, so loud her breath catches. It’s late afternoon still, but it’s dark as though the sun’s gone down, and when the skies open the rain is cold on her skin.

There’s nobody around to care, so Rey strips out of her clothes, finds her sliver of soap, washes her skin, her hair, her clothes—and by now she’s shivering, but it’s worth it, weeks of sweat and dust and grit that quick wipedowns never quite remove washing away into the sand. Inside she finds a blanket, wraps up in it and sits on the bed. The rain on the roof is deafening—a pitched battle could be happening in the sky above Jakku and she wouldn’t be able to hear it. It’s still hot in here, close and stuffy, and Rey hunts for air vents that she can open without letting in the water, sits down next to one and breathes in the cool, wet air. Even her lungs feel cleaner.

She curls up, blanket wrapped around her, and falls asleep to the sound of rain.


	6. Flame: Rokia

When Rokia opens the door to the apartment, the power's out. Again. Which means what's-his-name lost the electric bill, probably, and Rokia's going to have to go to the Justice Building tomorrow and play "pitiful child" to get them to issue a new one and let her pay it without too much trouble. 

She just hopes it's someone different working than it was last time she had to do this. 

But she can’t do that until tomorrow, anyway, and it’s dark already, and Allie’s holding tight to her hand and sniffling, trying not to cry. Rokia shifts Kadi on her hip, peers into the darkness and follows the shadow of the wall to their room. 

Allie doesn’t want to let go of Rokia’s hand. “Come on, baby,” Rokia says, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. “I just have to unlock the door, there’s candles inside.” 

Allie whimpers a little but lets go, and Rokia fumbles in her pocket for the key, unlocks the door and pushes it open. There on the battered dresser are the matches, the box of candles. But she needs both hands, and Kadi’s asleep against her shoulder, and if she wakes up she’ll cry, and then Allie will whine and Rokia might just scream, because she’s so damn tired. 

She grabs the matches and candles in one hand and crosses to the girls’ mattress. Allie’s still whimpering by the door, frozen in place. Rokia ignores her for now, sits carefully, leaning against the wall so she can let Kadi’s own weight hold her against Rokia’s chest long enough for Rokia to get a match lit, hold it to the candle wick.

And then finally—finally—the flame takes hold and the shadows dance around the room and Allie races towards them, curls in on Rokia’s right side. Rokia holds Kadi, careful, careful, leans forward to drip wax onto the floor and stands the candle upright. 

Takes a deep breath, finally, leans back again, holding her sisters, and tries not to fall asleep with the candle still burning.


	7. Formal: Johanna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for rape and drug use for this chapter

The crowd at the President’s mansion is sedate, for the Capitol, high-class formalwear and fancy food and drinks that taste like fruit and sugar, classical music from an orchestra on stage.

She shook the new Victor’s hand, earlier, and he gave her a practiced smile, just a little too sharp, even though his eyes were glassy from whatever they were keeping him full of to handle the parties.

His mentor was standing behind him, tall and stern with her arms crossed over her chest, and her eyes were cut-glass sharp, watching anyone who got too close.

Johanna’s mentor is back in Seven.

And her night won’t end here. No, she’s trying to toe the careful line between too sober to stand it and too drunk to walk, when her date for the evening takes her arm and ushers her out the door.

He fucks her in the car, under her skirt, tears her underwear and leaves the dress ruined. Laughs, when he finishes, has the driver stop somewhere quiet while he strips her out of it, pulls something new out from somewhere and dresses her like a doll. He’s young-looking, with blank grey eyes and a sharp goatee, and he kisses her hard, bites her lower lip, slides his tongue into her mouth—and there’s something hard and bitter on his tongue, and fuck’s sake he could’ve just given her the damn pill, it’s not like she wouldn’t have taken it.

She growls against his mouth in irritation, but he takes it as something else and pushes harder.

Finally, she’s dressed to his satisfaction, covered just enough not to break obscenity laws that they probably don’t even have in the fucking Capitol, and whatever he gave her leaves her heart racing and laughter bubbling up dark and fractured from her stomach.

It’s a hell of a contrast, in here, dark except for the strobing flashes of color, music so loud she feels it in her sternum, vibrating all the way through her, bodies pressed against her—his, others, she sometimes loses track.

He pulls her into a back room, brings her back out to dance, his eyes wide, hungry, his teeth leaving marks on her neck, her collarbone.

When he takes her hand, guides her outside, it’s full daylight. Johanna blinks as the light drives metal into her head, tastes acid in the back of her throat. She’s shaky and confused, and her date has to guide her over to the car, pushes her in none too gently. He doesn’t follow, just shuts the door.

“Where to, ma’am,” the driver says, annoyed but trying not to show it.

“Home,” Johanna says, not thinking—and then gasps out something between a laugh and a sob. The car heads for the Training Centre anyway.


	8. Companion: Sara

Sara’d been looking forward to having Rokia at the same school, but when classes start up again after the Games, Rokia’s not there. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything, Rokia misses a lot of school, but Sara’s got a bad feeling something’s up.

Rokia’s already at Sal’s when Sara gets there. She’s sitting on a stool assembling a refurbished fuel pump, bent over, and—

“Why do you have the baby with you?” Sara blurts out, because Rokia’s baby sister is wrapped close against her back.

Rokia jumps. Oops. Then she sets down her tools and turns around slowly. Sara bites back the urge to ask more because Rokia already looks furious, and exhausted. “If I put her down she wakes up,” Rokia says, as though it’s obvious, and maybe it is if you know anything about babies, but Sara doesn’t.

“That why you weren’t at school?” Sara asks.

Rokia nods, swallows. “I’m not going anymore,” she says, looking down. “I gotta start Kadi on formula, that shit’s expensive.”

“Formula? Since when?”

Rokia’s mouth curls in a bitter smile. “Since Mom walked out yesterday and hasn’t been back.”

“Shit,” Sara says, her hands curling into fists. “Your fucking Mom,” she starts, stops when she doesn’t know what to follow it with, what she hasn’t already said a hundred times.

Rokia shrugs the shoulder that’s not got fabric across it for the baby. “Prob’ly better anyway, Mom says she isn’t using but I fucking doubt that.”

Sara sighs, looks out past Rokia at the ceiling so she doesn’t do something stupid like start yelling about how fucked up this damn district is.

The baby starts fussing, quiet sniffles and hiccuping cries. Rokia squeezes her eyes closed, then opens them, reaches to swing the baby around in front of her. “Why are you so difficult?” she asks, hauling Kadi up onto her shoulder and hopping down, bouncing the kid and walking towards Sara, rolling her eyes. “I don’t know what the fuck you want,” she says, sing-song.

As she passes Sara she says, “Sal wants us to get all the fuel pumps changed out, can you pull the next one?”

“Sure,” Sara answers, familiar frustration curling in her chest.

“I’ll be back,” Rokia says, walks toward the office.

Sara finds her tools and gets to work.


	9. Move: Zea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight spoilers for the WIP sequel to [Tractors turning the multiple furrows in the vacant land](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5155469)

When Zea was six years old her family moved from Fairview to Enid. When she was nine they moved to Inman, twelve is Guyman, fifteen is Okeene. Eighteen they moved to Salina, while Zea went to the City to train on the combines and from there to apprenticing with Durum and traveling the length and breadth of the district, cutting and planting and moving with the seasons. She’s never stayed in one place long enough to put down roots, doesn’t really see much point.

The way Lucerne tells it though, the land used to matter, back before the Dark Days. Used to be folks out in the depots’d trace back generations on the same piece, knew every tree and rock on every quarter section, walked the fields when the wheat was young and crumbled the soil in their hands. It’s a strange thing to think about, fifteen feet off the ground in a stuffy combine cab. Only dirt Zea sees is the dust that settles gritty on her sweaty skin, sticks in her boots, turns to tire-sucking mud if they get rain while they’re trying to cut.

She tells Lucerne all this, and the old woman smiles, blue eyes faraway. “You’ll see,” Lucerne says, a dream and a promise. “It’s different when the land is yours.” Zea’s skeptical, but she looks around at the little camp, the shelters dug into the riverbank where the hovercraft can’t see them, their little crew drying out in the sun after last night’s storm. It’s not much, but it’s theirs, and maybe Lucerne is right. Lucerne usually is.


	10. Silver: Sara

The first time Sara gets to leave District Six she feels like she could conquer the world. They’re in a slow, heavy cargo train hauling machinery to District Nine but she doesn’t care. Doesn’t care that everyone’s teasing her, that her bunk is a foot and a half from the ceiling because that’s the rookie spot, doesn’t care that she’s got graveyard shift unloading in Nine and she ought to be sleeping.

None of that matters, because as soon as they were clear of the boundary fence, Madi smiled at her and motioned out the back with a jerk of her head, and here they are, sitting up on the top of a boxcar watching the city disappear behind them, the rails gleaming silver in the sunlight.


	11. Prepared: Rokia

She thought she was ready. They’ve been planning ever since the card was read, trying to think of all the contingencies, Rokia saw her grandmother last night, late, and she’ll be with the girls now, at Sal’s, and they’ll leave on the train soon and disappear.

And still it sounds like the escort is a couple districts over when she calls out the name—Poppy, not Rokia, and Plutarch said that’s how it would go but she knows better than to trust him. And then—“Chester Phillips,” the escort trills, and Rokia can’t breathe.

“I volunteer,” the voice is uninflected, harsh.

Rokia can see again. Phillips is staring at Terence, his expression completely blank. Terence shrugs one shoulder, his face twists into a sardonic smile, and he steps forward, climbs the steps, and takes Poppy’s hand.


	12. Knowledge: Sara

“I hate math,” Sara says, dropping her pencil and leaning her head back against the wall. “It’s stupid and pointless and when am I ever going to have to solve quadratic equations working on the trains?”

Rokia’s assembling parts at the workbench, and she looks over. “What’ll you pay me to do it for you?” she asks, teasing.

Sara raises her eyebrows because that’s a look that usually ends in—things they definitely aren’t going to be doing in Sal’s office, unfortunately. But she really, really hates algebra, so, “I’ll buy you dinner, you and the girls.”

Rokia gets up, sits next to Sara on the couch. “Sold,” she says, taking the textbook off Sara’s lap. And they’re pressed together thigh-to-thigh, and Rokia knows exactly what she’s doing right now, grinning like she is, and Sara holds out all of 30 seconds before she digs her fingers into Rokia’s hair and kisses her, hard.


	13. Denial: Sara

This isn’t happening.

It’s not possible, it’s not real, Sara flat-out refuses to believe it, and yet—Rokia climbs up the steps to the platform and turns to face the crowd. To anyone else she looks almost bored, but Sara looks up at the screen showing Rokia’s face so much larger than life, and Sarahas known her since she was nine years old and she sees the twitching muscles around Rokia’s eyes, the tension in her shoulders.

There’s how many thousand Reaping-age girls in District Six? And they picked Rokia.

Sara’s rooted in place, even after everything’s over and the crowd starts to disappear. If she moves it’ll be real, she’ll have to think about what to _do,_ and an hour ago she was planning to sneak Rokia into a bar and get her to relax and then—

Matt startles her out of whatever this is. “Sara, c’mon,” he says, taking her arm. “We gotta go see her.”

Sara takes a deep breath. “Yeah,” she says, turning toward him. “Yeah, okay.”

They walk into the Justice Building together.


	14. Wind: Zea

In Nine, saying “it’s windy” is like saying “grass is green.” It’s always windy. Zea’s heard that in Seven they have a hundred names for kinds of snow, and it would sound silly if she didn’t already have so many names for different kinds of wind.

There’s the cool breezes on hot days in late spring, when the sun warms her skin and the wind keeps her from sweating. There’s steady summer wind, blowing the wheat into rolling waves and rustling in the leaves of the trees at the Depot. There’s thunderstorm wind, coming up out of nowhere on strangely still afternoons, shockingly cool, rain-scented and wild. There’s the cold wind out of the north in the fall, a reminder to get the last of the winter wheat in before the snow falls. Blizzard winds, blocked by the buildings in the City but wild and bitter when she was a kid in Fairview. The warm breeze breathing Spring back into the District, bringing a promise of movement and life and green.


	15. Order: Rokia

Rokia never thought of her life as particularly chaotic. It was just life, organized around the girls’ school schedules and interrupted by trips to the Capitol.

Compared to life in district 13, though, life before was anarchy.

Rokia’s assigned to Air Defense, given a schedule that’s inked on her arm every morning. Given a regulation bunk in a regulation room with a girl, younger than her, who works in the infirmary. Told to go to sleep when the lights go off, wake up when they come back on.

That one’s impossible.

But it’s pitch-dark in the room, just the faintest glow leaking under the door from the emergency lighting, and Rokia has nothing to do.

Except think.

She tries to construct problems for herself. How to improve the shielding on the designs 13 is using, years out of date by Capitol standards. How to bring down the fast attack craft the Capitol is sending out to Eight and Eleven. How to improve targeting on 13’s missiles, and jam the Capitol’s.

It only works for so long, before she’s wondering about Allie and Kadi, Sara, grandma, Matt. Phillips, in the Capitol. Lyme.

Finally she gives up, finds her way through dim halls to the repair bay. There’s a smaller crew working there at night, but the lights are on and the tools are where Rokia left them, and she gets to work. After a few nights of that, the guy in charge notices, promotes her, gives her space and a couple guys to work with. They assign her a communicuff. Adjust her schedule so that beyond her required military training she’s free to do as she likes.

Rokia starts sleeping in the pilots’ barracks, noisy rooms just off the hangars, curtains draped around rows of unassigned bunks. The noise is grounding. When she wakes up she knows where she is, instead of being disoriented in the black silence. When she needs to get up after a nightmare, it’s just steps to the repair bays. She doesn’t have time to think anymore, and if she works long enough, sometimes she doesn’t dream.


	16. Thanks: Lyme

Rokia’s quiet at breakfast, even more than usual. She eats slowly, curled around a cup of coffee, absorbing the warmth, and only occasionally setting it down to take a bite of the oatmeal swirled with peanut butter that Lyme started making for Claudius, back when.

It’s not till the oatmeal and the coffee are both gone that Rokia looks up and meets Lyme’s eyes.

“Thanks,” she says, short, looks away toward the corner of the room. “For…you know.” She waves vaguely at the food. “Fixing me,” she adds, sarcastic tone of voice to soften whatever blow she’s waiting for.

“You’re the mechanic,” Lyme says, keeping her tone light. “If anyone’s fixing things around here it’s you.”

Rokia glares at her, which is how Lyme knows she understood.

“And I’m happy to help,” Lyme adds, granting that much.

Rokia looks down, quiet for a moment, then takes the dishes over to the sink.


	17. Look: Sara

Sara knew she shouldn't expect to see much of the districts they're riding through. She knows the rules, they're not allowed to leave the loading zone, not allowed to fraternize with locals on the loading crews. A long list of "no" that she doesn't really understand the reasons for. 

Until the first time she works the 9-10-11-12 run. Nine and Ten aren't so shocking except for how much _space_ there is. In Ten she learns why everyone transfers off this route as soon as they've got the seniority. The flatbed cars that carried machinery from Six and containers of feed from Nine are loaded with hoppers of dried manure, they tack on a couple tanks of what the Ten loading boss calls "slurry" and which Keita tells her is watery pig shit, and the whole damn loading zone smells like a backed up sewer. 

But the real shock is when they come into Eleven, and the whole train gets stopped outside a fortified gate, searched inside and out by Peacekeepers with guns strapped to their hips and visors down, even inside. There are as many PKs as crew in the loading zone, and nobody so much as opens their mouths while they unhook the tank cars, shift the manure containers, offload pallets of tesserae. 

They don't load anything to replace the containers, flatbed cars stay empty, just a few pallets of vegetables to replace the tesserae they offloaded. Once they've been searched again and are on their way out she asks Keita why.

He snorts. "You'll see. Ain't like those dirty miners in Twelve can afford anything 'cept tesserae anyway." 

He's right. When they roll into Twelve, Sara's shocked by the contrast. A couple Peacekeepers stand at the fence, but they're leaning back, helmets off, relaxed. A handful of guys pull the pallets of tesserae, and Sara sees one guy slip a sack off the pallet and into a space under the platform where the bricks are broken. He catches her looking and grins, white teeth shining against the coal dust on his face. He kicks the rubble against the hole, hiding his prize. 

Sara took tesserae every year she could, so did everyone she knew, but the only people she's seen desperate enough to be selling tesserae grain are the kind of addicts who look like you might see them dead in an alley any day now. 

But here--well, she's not the only one who saw the guy. The PKs aren't paying attention, but there's a clutch of scrawny kids standing against the fence, eyes huge. They're staring at boxes of shriveled apples, potatoes, cabbages as though it's the jars of candy at a corner store, and one boy's glaring at the crewman who stole the tesserae as though he could burn a hole right through him. The crewman catches it and grins, nods at the kid and raises an eyebrow, and somehow that must be language because the kid scowls and nods back, looks away.

"Sara!" Keita's calling her, and she gets back to work. 

 

It becomes routine, after a while, machinery for grain for shit for coal, round and round eastern Panem, and Sara stops being shocked by it soon enough. She doesn't forget, though, and when Keita motions her to a corner of the coal yard in Twelve and asks her if she wants to join the Rebellion, she glances over at the kids--different ones every time--and says yes. 


	18. Summer: Phillips

The Games are over, but Rokia’s still not done. The Victor, a picture-perfect girl from One, won’t take too long recovering, but even that won’t be the end. Linsea’s got a schedule that runs out two full weeks, post-Games, and Phillips isn’t leaving until Rokia does. Or until someone makes him.

Rokia tries. “Go _home,_ Phillips,” she says, exhausted and annoyed. “You should pick up the girls from Sal’s, take them home.”

Phillips just gives her a level look. “Allie would kill me if I came back without you,” he says, keeping his voice mild.

Rokia glares at him, like he’s cheating somehow. He is, knows that reasoning will work better than anything to do with taking care of her. And Allie might not kill him, but she’d be silently furious, and that’s almost worse. “Fine,” she says, and he might have won but Rokia walks into her room, pulls the door closed, and it’s nothing to celebrate.

 

They leave in the morning, just after sunrise. Phillips drops his things in his compartment, heads for the observation car in the back of the train to try to clear his head.

He isn’t expecting to find Rokia there—he hoped she’d be sleeping—but she’s sitting at the back with a window cracked open, kneeling backwards on the bench with her face turned into the wind.

Phillips sits off to one side and watches, and she knows he’s here but she doesn’t seem to care.

Eventually she turns around and sits, leans her head back and turns towards him, half-smiling.

“I forgot it was summer,” she says, sounding drowsy for the first time in weeks, her voice soft. “Don’t seem like real seasons in the Capitol.”

Phillips doesn’t know what to say, so he stays quiet. The sun’s shining bright in the windows, the wind whistling and bellowing against the windows, but Rokia curls into the corner of the seat, head pillowed on the armrest, and he’s pretty sure she falls asleep.


	19. Transformation: Rey

It doesn’t rain often on Jakku. But last night it did, hard and furious, and this morning the air is strange and cool when Rey heads out.

She’s thinking about the cluster of ships she’s aiming for when she heads into a shallow depression and she pulls her hand off the throttle in shock. It’s like her dream—blue, spreading out under her speeder’s jets in waves. It’s a pool in between the dunes, but it isn’t water, it’s flowers, tiny blue things stretching upwards on impossibly thin stalks. Rey stops in the middle of the bowl and climbs off. The sand crunches as her feet break through the thin crust on top, and underneath—Rey crouches down—it’s wet, the sand sticks to her fingers, leaves dust marks on her fingers when she wipes them on her leg.

She stays there a long time, squatting down unmoving to keep from crushing more blossoms and breathing in the smell of unexpected life.


	20. Tremble: Lyme

Rokia usually comes back from therapy sessions _shaken_ but this is the first time she’s actually shaking. The session runs long, and instead of sending Rokia out to the waiting room on her own, Adriana comes with her, one hand on Rokia’s shoulder. Walks her all the way over to where Lyme’s stood up to greet them but is frozen at the fear on Rokia’s face, the way she’s curled in, protecting herself.

“Lyme’s here,” Adriana says, in a soft voice. “You’re okay.”

Rokia looks up, wide-eyed, and Lyme crouches down, forearms balanced over her knees so Rokia can watch her without looking up. “Hey, kiddo,” she says, cautious.

Rokia blinks a few times, like she’s trying to clear her head, then steps forward. Lyme stands up and Rokia moves in close, wrapping her arms around Lyme’s waist, leaning her head against Lyme’s shoulder. Lyme hugs back, one hand working into Rokia’s hair, scratching against her scalp. She catches Adriana’s eye over Rokia’s head, raises an eyebrow.

Adriana looks tired, now that Rokia’s not watching, and she shakes her head slowly. Lyme strokes Rokia’s hair again and asks, “Hey kiddo, you wanna go home?” Rokia nods against her, doesn’t move. Lyme hesitates for a second, then lifts the girl onto her hip. Rokia doesn’t protest, doesn’t even tense up, just fits herself against Lyme’s side until they reach the car.

She walks into the house by herself, but she’s still sticking close like a shadow, still not saying anything, so Lyme walks over to the couch and lets Rokia curl into her lap, strokes Rokia’s hair and rubs her back until she falls asleep.


	21. Sunset: Sara

Rokia’s not in the house, not at the shop, not out in the garage tinkering, and Sara’s about to get worried when she thinks of one more place to check.

“Dammit, Rokia,” Sara says, crawling out the window onto the roof over the front porch. “Monkey-mutt.”

Rokia looks over and grins. “I wanted to watch the sunset,” she says.

Sara looks up. The sun’s near the mountains, warm soft light limning Rokia’s cheekbones and turning her hair into a halo of light.

Rokia tilts her head, questioning. Sara shifts carefully over towards her, wraps an arm around Rokia’s shoulders. They don’t need to say anything, it’s all in the way Rokia relaxes against Sara, leaning her head against Sara’s shoulder.

They sit there until the last colors fade into a dark sky, stars coming out one by one and then so many Sara stops counting. The full moon rising behind them casting silvery shadows across the yard.

“I love you,” Rokia whispers, breath tickling Sara’s neck.

“I love you, too,” Sara echoes, squeezing Rokia in tight. It’ll get cold soon, they’ll have to go in and warm up, but not yet.


	22. Mad: Annie Cresta

Annie knows the rumors. Sees the speculation on TV even though Mags told her not to watch. Why she isn’t seen in the Capitol, why she doesn’t sponsor products or come out for appearances or even do interviews. Lost her mind, crazy, mad, insane. Someone to be pitied, a lost cause, a delicate china cup, slightly cracked.

She’s mad alright, furious, when some lady with silver hair and fingernails and eyelashes and patterns etched into her skin pronounces her adorable, after a video surfaces of her and Finnick, walking along the boardwalk in town. His arm is around her shoulders, and she’s leaning against him, and she’s pretty sure it was the morning she woke up sure she was in the Arena and half-convinced the house was a dream, and Finnick took her out to town and narrated every absurd thing that was happening till she believed in reality again.

So fine, she’s crazy, but it’s none of their fucking business, and they never have video of Finnick running down the beach and swimming back and working out on the point until someone has to help him into the house and make him drink water so he won’t pass out. Finnick gets to be their perfect angel child and she knows, she _knows_ that’s probably worse. Knows the poor crazy Annie stories keep her safe, here, keep her from having to do what Finnick does. Knows she couldn’t do it—wouldn’t manage not to snap and who knows whether that’d be curling in on herself and crying or lashing out and killing somebody.

Right now she’s guessing “kill somebody,” because she hasn’t registered what’s happening until Finnick’s voice cuts through the poison syrup from the goddamn screen.

“Annie!” Finnick calls out, and she realizes she’s thrown everything she can get her hands on at the TV, that the sound is garbled and the picture fractured, the room trashed and her chest heaving.

She spins to face him, snarls. “What do _you_ want?”

His face settles into the kind of calm that’s an act, and she hates him right now because he can fucking pull off the act.

“Just wanted to make sure you’re okay,” he says, even and reasonable, and how come _he_ gets to be reasonable?

“I’m _fine,”_ she sneers, standing still as he comes toward her. He’s not being careful, just concerned, and she’ll show him to treat her like they do, like she’s _fragile._ As soon as he’s in range she lashes out and drives the ball of her foot into his knee, feels the kneecap shift and Finnick goes down.

She stands over him, hands on her hips as he winces, glaring, and maybe later she’ll regret this, but right now she doesn’t, not one bit. Because now at least he’s not _acting_ for her. He pulls his knee to his chest, grimacing, then raises his hands, palms open. Surrenders.

She steps back, lets him sit up, lean his back against the wall and poke at his knee. Stalks over to the chair in the corner and drops down into it.

They sit, facing off warily across the room like the half-wild kids they _both_ are. Annie’s heart rate slows, and eventually she runs her hands through her hair and sighs.

“Sorry,” she says, reluctantly. “What’s the damage?”

Finnick shrugs. “’S’okay,” he says, gingerly straightening his leg. “Won’t be running for a while but I don’t think anything’s broken.”

Annie nods, and the silence stretches out again. His knee’s starting to swell.

She gets up, goes to the freezer and pulls out an ice pack. She throws it at his head, and he catches it. “Thanks,” he says.

“Don’t pull that bullshit around me next time and I won’t injure you,” Annie says, and the rage is draining out but she’s still pissed and he’s still an idiot.

Finnick looks away. “Yeah,” he says, drawing out the word. “Sorry.”

He glances back at her with a wry smile. “Guess Mags is the only one can get away with that,” he says, watching.

Annie takes the peace offering, snorts. “Yeah,” she admits. “Mentor superpower, I guess.”

Finnick snorts, half a laugh. “Guess so.”


	23. Thousand: Rey

Rey wonders, once in a while, if her family isn’t coming back after all. When she adds one more day to the tally on the wall, thousands of careful scratches reaching back to when she first made this place hers. And…Rey isn’t stupid. A lot of things could happen in that many days. A lot of ways to get killed out there in the Galaxy. She’s still clinging to half-remembered feelings—not even words, she can’t remember exactly what they said, has imagined it so many times she’s overwritten whatever it was with a half-dozen different versions—but she knows, she _knows_ they’re coming back, that she just has to wait. When the doubt crawls up her throat, late in lonely nights, she shoves it back because—no. It’s wrong, it has to be. They’re coming for her. She just has to wait.


	24. Outside: Sara

Sara’s not quite sure what to say when Rokia suggests they go hiking.

“It’s a nice day,” Rokia says, “We could head up the trails a ways.”

Sara blinks at her. Yes, okay, she is a city girl, as the cowboys in 10 keep reminding her at every opportunity. But so is Rokia, and what the fuck _trails,_ aren’t they way out in the middle of nowhere already?

“Trails,” Sara says, looking at Rokia.

Rokia laughs. “It’s not _that_ weird.”

Sara just keeps staring, and Rokia keeps smirking, and Sara is pretty sure there’s…lions or something out in the mountains but she’s really not going to tell Rokia she’s _scared,_ so finally she sighs. “Okay,” she says. “Let’s go.”

Rokia turns back to the kitchen, snags a backpack off the table, tosses a sweatshirt at Sara’s head. Sara catches it. “It’s not that cold,” she says, skeptically.

“Might be up there, wind’s cold,” Rokia says, shrugging into a jacket and the backpack. Sara reaches for the pack but shuts her mouth when Rokia glares. So she pulls the sweatshirt on and laughs.

“This is Lyme’s, isn’t it?” Sara says, rolling up the sleeves. It’s not quite as absurdly big on her as the stolen sweaters Rokia wears, but it’s big enough to be amusing.

“Mine wouldn’t fit you,” Rokia says, and she’s heading out the door.

 

The first half hour, Sara wonders why Rokia bothered with extra layers. Rokia walks fast always, and Sara’s grateful for the advantage a couple extra inches gives her in trying to keep up. She’s long since shed the sweatshirt when they get up to a ridge and Rokia stops.

Sara looks out and… “Damn,” she breathes. The Victors Village is nestled into the mountains, so you can see the woods and down to the town and the foothills, but from up here the mountains stretch west in jagged lines all the way to the horizon. Sara’s seen glimpses of snowcapped peaks from the train, but up here they seem close enough to touch. The trail leads out along the ridge, but Rokia’s still stopped, waiting.

“See?” Rokia says, “Told you.”

Sara tries to glare, but it’s probably a lost cause. And just to make it worse a gust of wind makes her shiver, and she unties the sweatshirt from around her waist. “Shut up,” she says, as she pulls it on.

“I didn’t say anything,” Rokia says, all false innocence.

“That’s right,” Sara says, like she’s somehow come out on top, because maybe if she acts like she believes it, Rokia will let it slide.

Rokia smirks, but stays quiet, and Sara contents herself with scowling at the back of Rokia’s head as they head out along the ridge.


	25. Winter: Rokia

Winter in District Two is not like winter in Six. There it’s wet, slush in the streets and icicles hanging off windowsills and thick wet snow sticking everywhere.

Winter in Two is dry, wind hitting the back of her throat like sandpaper, snow blowing powdery against the window. And cold, so cold it hurts when Rokia steps outside and breathes in.

Lyme goes out in it like it’s nothing, though, heads to see Claudius or Brutus or whoever, comes back in with her face red and her hair windblown but none the worse for it. Rokia stays inside, wraps herself in blankets and tries to move as little as possible.

Lyme laughs and ruffles Rokia’s hair and calls her a grumpy bear, trying to hibernate, and Rokia bares her teeth and burrows back into her warm nest.


	26. Diamond

[cancelled due to a brain-processing error]


	27. Letters: Rokia/Sara

Sara is good at finding hiding spots. For stolen pre-dawn meetings, but even more for folded and refolded scraps of whatever paper she can find: the backs of mis-filled loading forms, torn paper from sugar sacks, out-of-date crew schedules. Her pinched handwriting fills every inch, and then Sara folds the thing up small, tucked in on itself into a tiny little package and jams it in broken window ledges, under loose bricks, behind peeling siding.

Matt tells Rokia where to go, skeptical about the secrecy as always, laughing it off as one of Sara’s games. And today it’s an old spot, an apartment building near the El with peeling paint and conveniently rotten mortar.

It’s a longer note today, must’ve been a boring run for Sara to have this much time. Rokia finally gets a chance to read it after the girls are in bed, and she spreads the paper on the table and leans close.

Inhales, first, the smell of diesel smoke and grease and a hint of manure and sweat, then takes in the note, stories about a fuel spill in Nine that sounds too convenient to be accidental, jokes about finding a cowboy boyfriend in Ten or a sweet sugar-mama in Eleven, hints and clues hidden everywhere and Rokia will spend the rest of the week turning everything over in her head to find the hidden story Sara’s not quite telling.

But for now it’s late, and she’s tired, so she climbs the stairs to her room. Opens the chest against the wall and sets the note inside with the others. Washes her face, brushes her teeth, climbs into bed alone and wishes that just for once she didn’t have to.


	28. Promises: Rokia/Sara

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just before the Third Quarter Quell

They don’t make promises. Never have. Life’s too uncertain for promises. But the night before the Reaping Rokia hears a noise outside and when she goes to the window Sara’s trying to climb the downspout.

Rokia opens the window and hisses at Sara, “What the _fuck_ are you doing?”

Sara looks up, and Rokia expected Sara’s usual grin but no, her lips are pressed together. “Wasn’t sure you’d let me in,” she says, “but fuck you if you think you’re leaving for the Capitol without seeing me.”

Rokia blinks. “I’ll let you in,” she says, closes the window and goes to the door.

This is stupid. It’s unbelievably reckless. But Sara pushes past her into the house, stands with her arms crossed over her chest just inside the door.

“Promise me,” she says. “Promise me you’ll do everything you can to get out.”

“Sara, it’s not my call,” Rokia says. They’ve been over this. Rokia has a job to do, and nobody knows what’ll happen to any of them, in the end.

“Promise.” Sara says, eyes flashing, mouth hard, her fingers digging into her upper arms.

Rokia sighs, looks away over Sara’s shoulder and out the window. Looks back into Sara’s eyes, warm and brown and familiar and scared, behind everything.

“I’ll try,” Rokia says, soft.

“Promise me.”

“I promise,” Rokia says, locking eyes with Sara.

Sara uncrosses her arms and wraps Rokia in a hug, hard, then steps away before Rokia has a chance to react.

“Be careful,” Rokia says, as Sara turns to leave. Sara doesn’t turn back, just nods, opens the door, and disappears into the night.


	29. Simple: Rokia (with Wiress and Beetee)

“It’s quite straightforward really,” Beetee says, pushing his glasses up his nose and looking at Rokia across the table.

Rokia looks over at Wiress, raises an eyebrow. Wiress shakes her head.

“No, Beetee,” Rokia says, “It’s really not.”

Beetee purses his lips. “I suppose you have a better idea?”

Rokia pulls out her notebook. “All you have to do is…” She sketches quickly. “See?”

Wiress and Beetee share a glance. Wiress shrugs one shoulder. “She’s right, you know,” Wiress says. “The linkage is much more robust that way.”

Rokia beams. “Told you so,” she says. Beetee and Wiress both chuckle.


	30. Future: Rey

Rey’s life has always been defined by the future. Always been waiting for the day when her family comes back for her.

She’s not waiting anymore. She has a family: it’s Finn, and Poe, and Luke, and Leia, and Chewbacca, and she chose them and they chose her, and it isn’t just a matter of choosing once. Every day she wakes up and chooses again. Every day she learns something new: learns to fight like the lightsaber is part of her arm. Learns to grow things: tiny green shoots emerging from nothing and always a miracle. Learns that Finn loves the open sky but isn’t sure he won’t fall up into it and drown. Learns that Leia will straighten her spine and carry on, no matter what the rest of them put on her shoulders. Learns Poe’s evasion maneuvers. Learns Chewbacca’s lullabies.

Every day is the future. Every day is uncertain and terrifying and joyful and full of possibilities. Every day Rey chooses, over and over and over again.


End file.
